acaciayoudaoicibaDictYouDict[acacia 词源字典]
acacia: [16] Acacia comes via Latin from Greek akakía, a word for the shittah. This is a tree mentioned several times in the Bible (the Ark of the Covenant was made from its wood). It is not clear precisely what it was, but it was probably a species of what we now know as the acacia. The ultimate derivation of Greek akakía is obscure too; some hold that it is based on Greek aké ‘point’ (a distant relation of English acid), from the thorniness of the tree, but others suggest that it may be a loanword from Egyptian.
[acacia etymology, acacia origin, 英语词源]
furyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
fur: [14] Old English did not have a distinct word for ‘animal’s hair’ – the nearest approach to it was fell ‘animal’s hide’. Then in the 13th century English acquired the verb fur ‘line with fur’ from Anglo-Norman *furrer or Old French forrer ‘encase, line’. These were derivatives of the Old French noun forre ‘sheath, case’, a loanword from prehistoric Germanic *fōthram ‘sheath’, which in turn goes back to the Indo-European base *- ‘protect’.

In the 14th century the new English verb was taken as the basis for a noun, which originally meant ‘trimming for a garment, made from fur’, or more loosely ‘garment made from fur’; it was not until the 15th century that it was used for ‘animal’s hair’.

garageyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
garage: [20] As the motor-car age got under way at the start of the 20th century, a gap opened up in the lexicon for a word for ‘car-storage place’. English filled it in 1902 by borrowing French garage. The first references to it show that the term (station was an early alternative) was originally applied to large commercially run shelters housing many vehicles – the equivalent more of modern multi-storey car parks than of garages (the Daily Mail, for example, on 11 January 1902, reports the ‘new “garage” founded by Mr Harrington Moore, hon. secretary of the Automobile Club … The “garage”, which is situated at the City end of Queen Victoria-street, has accommodation for 80 cars’, and Alfred Harmsworth, in Motors 1902, wrote of ‘stations or “garages” where a number of cars can be kept’).

It was not long, however, before individual houses got more personalized garages, and the application to an establishment where vehicle repairs are carried out and fuel sold soon followed. The French word garage itself is a derivative of the verb garer, which originally meant ‘dock ships’. It comes from Old French garer ‘protect, defend’, a loanword from Old High German warōn (to which English ward, warn, and the -ware of beware are related).

=> beware, ward, warn
gauntletyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
gauntlet: The gauntlet of ‘run the gauntlet’ has no etymological connection with gauntlet ‘glove’ [15]. The latter was borrowed from Old French gantelet, a diminutive form of gant ‘glove’. This was originally a Germanic loanword, with surviving relatives in Swedish and Danish vante ‘glove’. As for ‘running the gauntlet’, it was to begin with ‘running the gantlope’, in which gantlope signified ‘two lines of people armed with sticks, who attacked someone forced to run between them’.

This was borrowed in the 17th century from Swedish gatlopp, a descendant of Old Swedish gatulop ‘passageway’; this was a compound noun formed from gata ‘way’ (related to English gate, gait) and lop ‘course’ (related to English leap and lope). Under the influence of gauntlet ‘glove’, English changed gatlopp to gantlope, and thence to gantlet (now restricted in use to an ‘overlapping section of railway track’) and gauntlet (as in ‘run the gauntlet’).

=> gait, gate, leap, lope
trackyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
track: [15] Track was borrowed from Old French trac ‘trail, set of footprints, etc’. This too appears to have been a loanword, from Middle Dutch trek ‘pulling’ (ultimate source of English trek [19], via Afrikaans), which was derived from the verb trekken ‘pull’. The sense ‘path’ did not emerge until as recently as the 19th century.
=> trek
waityoudaoicibaDictYouDict
wait: [12] Wait originally meant ‘look, spy’. But the notion of remaining in hiding, keeping a watch on one’s enemies’ movements led via the sense ‘remain, stay (in expectation)’ to, in the 17th century, ‘defer action’. The word was borrowed from Old Northern French waitier, which was itself a loanword from prehistoric Germanic *wakhtan (ultimate source also of English waft). This in turn was formed from the base *wak-, which also produced English wake, watch, etc. The sense ‘serve food at table’ emerged in the 16th century from an earlier ‘attend on’.
=> waft, wake, watch
dance (v.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
c. 1300, from Old French dancier (12c., Modern French danser), which is of unknown origin, perhaps from Low Frankish *dintjan and akin to Old Frisian dintje "tremble, quiver." A word of uncertain origin but which, through French influence in arts and society, has become the primary word for this activity from Spain to Russia (Italian danzare, Spanish danzar, Rumanian dansa, Swedish dansa, German tanzen).
In part the loanword from French is used mainly with reference to fashionable dancing while the older native word persists in use with reference to folk-dancing, as definitively Russ. pljasat' vs. tancovat' [Buck].
Replaced Old English sealtian, itself a borrowing from Latin saltare "to dance," frequentative of salire "to leap" (see salient (adj.); "dance" words frequently are derived from words meaning "jump, leap"). Related: Danced; dancing.
It is strange, and will, I am sure, appear to my readers almost incredible, that as far as I have ever read, there is no reference that can be identified as containing a clear allusion to dancing in any of our really ancient MS. books. [Eugene O'Curry, "On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish," vol. 2, p.406, 1873]
fagus (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
botanical genus of beech trees, from Latin fagus "beech," from PIE root *bhagos "beech tree" (cognates: Greek phegos "oak," Latin fagus "beech," Russian buzina "elder," Old English bece, Old Norse bok, German Buche "beech"), perhaps with a ground sense of "edible" (and connected with the root of Greek phagein "to eat;" see -phagous). Beech mast was an ancient food source for agricultural animals across a wide stretch of Europe.
The restriction to western IE languages and the reference to different trees have suggested to some scholars that this word was not PIE, but a later loanword. In the Balkans, from which the beech started to spread after 6000 BC, the [Greek] word means 'oak,' not 'beech.' Yet 'oak' and 'beech' are both 'fruit-bearing trees,' so that a semantic shift from 'oak' to 'beech' appears quite conceivable. The word itself may then have been PIE after all. [de Vaan]
fascinate (v.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
1590s, "bewitch, enchant," from Middle French fasciner (14c.), from Latin fascinatus, past participle of fascinare "bewitch, enchant, fascinate," from fascinus "a charm, enchantment, spell, witchcraft," which is of uncertain origin. Earliest used of witches and of serpents, who were said to be able to cast a spell by a look that rendered one unable to move or resist. Sense of "delight, attract and hold the attention of" is first recorded 1815.
To fascinate is to bring under a spell, as by the power of the eye; to enchant and to charm are to bring under a spell by some more subtle and mysterious power. [Century Dictionary]
Possibly from Greek baskanos "slander, envy, malice," later "witchcraft, sorcerery," with form influenced by Latin fari "speak" (see fame (n.)), but others say the resemblance of the Latin and Greek words is accidental. The Greek word might be from a Thracian equivalent of Greek phaskein "to say;" compare enchant, and German besprechen "to charm," from sprechen "to speak." Watkins suggests the Latin word is perhaps from PIE *bhasko- "band, bundle" via a connecting sense of "amulet in the form of a phallus" (compare Latin fascinum "human penis; artificial phallus; dildo"). Related: Fascinated; fascinating.
If [baskanos] and fascinum are indeed related, they would point to a meaning 'curse, spell' in a loanword from an unknown third language. [de Vaan]
fungus (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
1520s, "a mushroom," from Latin fungus "a mushroom, fungus;" used in English at first as a learned alternative to mushroom (funge was used in this sense late 14c.). The Latin word is believed to be cognate with (or derived from) Greek sphongos, the Attic form of spongos "sponge" (see sponge (n.)). "Probably a loanword from a non-IE language, borrowed independently into Greek, Latin and Armenian in a form *sphong- ...." [de Vaan]
sponge (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English sponge, spunge, from Latin spongia "a sponge," also "sea animal from which a sponge comes," from Greek spongia, related to spongos "sponge," of unknown origin. "Probably a loanword from a non-IE language, borrowed independently into Greek, Latin and Armenian in a form *sphong-" [de Vaan]. The Latin word is the source of Old Saxon spunsia, Middle Dutch spongie, Old French esponge, Spanish esponja, Italian spugna.

In English in reference to the marine animal from 1530s. To throw in the sponge "quit, submit" (1860) is from prizefighting, in reference to the sponges used to cleanse the faces of combatants between rounds (compare later throw in the towel). Sponge-cake is attested from 1808.